Monday, February 17, 2014 11:33:24 PM
The geopolitics of Ukraine's schism
.. Garden Rose, some big picture opinion for you .. your tiny
picture focus becomes tiresome and boring, to say the least ..
by Immanuel Wallerstein @ajam February 15, 2014
A potential alliance of France, Germany and Russia haunts US strategists
US State Department Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland talks during a press conference
at the US Embassy in Kiev on February 7, 2014.Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images
Ukraine has been suffering a profound internal schism for some time now, one that is threatening to become one of those ugly civil wars that are occurring in more and more countries. The boundaries of present-day Ukraine include an east-west cleavage that is linguistic, religious, economic, and cultural, each side being close to 50 percent of the total.
The present government (said to be dominated by the eastern half) is accused in public demonstrations by the other side of corruption and authoritarian rule. No doubt this is true, at least in part. It is not however clear that a government dominated by the western half would be less corrupt and less authoritarian. In any case, the issue is posed internally in geopolitical terms: Should Ukraine be part of the European Union, or should it knit strong ties with Russia?
It is therefore perhaps unexpected that YouTube is now featuring a tape in which the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, is shown discussing U.S. political strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine with the U.S. Ambassador. In this tape, Ms. Nuland poses the issue as a geopolitical struggle between the United States and Europe (and more particularly Germany). She is caught in a diatribe, in which she says "Fuck the Europeans" - the Europeans, not the Russians.
Before we proceed with the analysis, let us take a moment to offer generic sympathy to all important people these days. In the last few years, there has been much discussion about the loss of privacy in communications. But this discussion has always been about little people subject to spying by governments, in particular by the U.S. National Security Agency. It seems however that this loss of privacy now extends to people like Ms. Nuland. There is much speculation about exactly who bugged her conversation and made it go viral on YouTube. The point is that poor Ms. Nuland is no longer safe in saying anything - or at least anything that she wouldn't want the whole world to know.
Let us take a look at who is Victoria Nuland. She is a surviving member of the neocon clique that surrounded George W. Bush, in whose government she served. Her husband, Robert Kagan, is one of the best-known ideologues of the neocon group. It is an interesting question what she is doing in such a key position in the Department of State of an Obama presidency. The least he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were supposed to do was to remove the neocons from such a role.
"Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power,
but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong."
Now, let us recall what exactly was the neocon line on Europe during the Bush days. The then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously talked of France and Germany as the "old Europe" in contrast to what he saw as the "new Europe" - that is, countries who shared Rumsfeld's views on the then imminent invasion of Iraq. The new Europe was for Rumsfeld Great Britain especially and east-central Europe, the countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc. Ms. Nuland seems to have the same perception of Europe.
Let me therefore propose that Ukraine is merely a convenient excuse or proxy for a larger geopolitical division that has nothing whatsoever to do with its internal schism. What haunts the Nulands of this world is not a putative "absorption" of Ukraine by Russia - an eventuality with which she could live. What haunts her and those who share her views is a geopolitical alliance of Germany/France and Russia. The nightmare of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis has receded a little bit since its acme in 2003, when U.S. efforts to have the U.N. Security Council endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 were defeated by France and Germany.
The nightmare has receded a bit but lurks there just beneath the surface, and for good reason. Such an alliance makes geopolitical sense for Germany/France and Russia. And in geopolitics, what makes sense is a constraint that insisting on ideological differences can affect very little. Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power, but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong.
Why does a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis make sense? There are good reasons. One is the U.S. turn towards a Pacific-centrism replacing its long history of Atlantic-centrism. Russia's nightmare, and Germany's as well, is not a U.S.-China war but a U.S.-China alliance (one that would include Japan and Korea as well). Germany's only way of diminishing this threat to its own prosperity and power is an alliance with Russia. And her policy towards Ukraine shows precisely the priority she gives to resolving European issues by including rather than excluding Russia.
As for France, Hollande has been trying to woo the United States by acting as though France were part of the "new Europe." But Gaullism has been since 1945 the basic geopolitical stance of France. Such supposedly non-Gaullist presidents like Mitterrand and Sarkozy in fact pursued Gaullist policies. And Hollande will soon find he has little choice but to be a Gaullist. Gaullism is not "leftism" but rather the sense that it is the United States that threatens a continuing geopolitical role for France, and France has to defend its interests by an opening to Russia in order to counterbalance the power of the United States.
Who will win in this game? It remains to be seen. But Victoria Nuland seems a little like King Canute commanding the seas to recede. And the poor Ukrainians may find that they are forced to bind up their internal wounds whether they want to or not.
Immanuel Wallerstein is a senior research scholar in the department of sociology at Yale University and director emeritus of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. He is also a resident researcher at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. His many books include “The Modern World-System and Historical Capitalism.” He lives in New Haven, Conn., and Paris.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/ukraine-nuland-europeyanukovychputin.html
====
The Cat, the Rooster, and the Young Mouse... and Vladimir Putin, Victoria Nuland, and Europe
András Simonyi
Managing Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR), Johns Hopkins University
Erik Brattberg
Visiting Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Posted: 02/10/2014 9:19 am EST Updated: 02/10/2014 9:59 am EST
After the terrible thing that happened last week, namely Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland using the F-word in reference to the EU's "effectiveness" in the Ukraine, we thought it might be good idea to remember a fable by Aesop: The Cat, the Rooster, and the Young Mouse.
We Europeans have all read it as children although it was not meant for children at all. Just to refresh your memory, it's about the scary looking Rooster who scares the hell out of the Little Mouse, when he screams and chases away the Cat, who is smooth looking and kind, but about to eat the little one. When the Little Mouse tells about his ordeal to his mother, she enlightens him:
----
"My son", said the Mother Mouse, "that gentle creature you saw was none other than the Cat. Under his kindly appearance, he bears a grudge against every one of us. The other was nothing but a bird who wouldn't harm you in the least. As for the Cat, he eats us. So be thankful, my child, that you escaped with your life, and, as long as you live, never judge people by their looks."
----
We think it is a fitting tale. Let's state the obvious: leaking the Assistant Secretary of State's private phone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine has a certain Eastern European leader written all over it. You know, the one at the moment enjoying being the host of the Winter Olympics. You have one guess. Look at it this way: it's another little episode in the Kremlin's thinly veiled and continued efforts to divide Europe and the United States.
The fallout from the Nuland YouTube video says little about Washington's attitude towards the EU and more about America's real strategic worries -- and of course the modus operandi of present day Russia. As we now know, the story was originally tweeted by a Russian government account. Even though Nuland quickly apologized, some Europeans fell for the obvious temptation of resorting to outrage. Angela Merkel's spokesperson called Nuland's words "absolutely unacceptable." And a member of the European Parliament, Austrian Jörg Leichtfried, not only called for Nuland's resignation but also a suspension of the negotiations of the transatlantic free trade agreement, TTIP.
Utter nonsense! Perhaps European diplomats in Washington failed to inform their leaders, that Nuland is Europe's friend. One should look at her track record. One should also know how happy European diplomats in Washington were to see her take the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. She knows Europe and she cares about the EU. In her first major speech in Washington after becoming appointed to her current position, Nuland spoke warmly of the EU and promised to work towards a new "transatlantic renaissance." She is the wrong person to fight on an issue where she was perhaps too harsh in her language, but certainly not off the mark as far as the substance is concerned.
Both Europeans and Americans have a shared interest in ensuring that the diplomatic crisis over the Nuland non-story does not escalate any further. In the wake of the NSA scandal, which is still reverberating strongly in some (though not all) European capitals and with the stakes in Ukraine getting higher by the day, what the West needs now is unity rather than division. Europe and America needs to stand firm and stand together in its opposition to the Yanukovich government's brutal crackdown of peaceful protestors and against Putin's foul play in the country.
So rather than wasting time decrying Nuland's comments, it would behoove European leaders to pay closer attention to what she has actually said -- namely, that the EU's response to the Ukraine crisis so far has been embarrassingly weak and slow, lacking a sense of urgency. Although some individual European leaders like Sweden's Carl Bildt and Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski have rightly called for a tougher and more pro-active EU approach to Ukraine, on the whole Europe has failed to deliver.
It is crucial that in addition to short-term fixes such as sanctions and economic aid, Brussels must also boldly extend to Ukraine the future possibility of membership in the EU as an incentive. This would naturally require revamping the Union's flawed neighborhood policy, which bizarrely lumps together countries as diverse as Ukraine and Egypt under a one-size-fits-all approach. If Ukraine shows anything, it is that this approach is nothing but an abject failure.
Europeans have repeatedly called for U.S. leadership. They should not be disappointed when such leadership is finally there. What Nuland said about the EU behind closed doors is not an issue. What should be an issue is for Europe to take a more strategic view and understand what really is at stake here.
Accept Nuland's apology and get back to the real issue: Europe and America must act together to resolve the Ukraine crisis. On that, clarity and even blunt talk is in place, as long as it helps keep that country on a trajectory towards democracy and indeed European integration.
Follow András Simonyi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CTR_SAIS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andras-simonyi/the-cat-the-rooster-and-t_b_4757247.html
See also:
Ukraine's Pivot to Moscow Leaves West Out in the Cold
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94629962
.. Garden Rose, some big picture opinion for you .. your tiny
picture focus becomes tiresome and boring, to say the least ..
by Immanuel Wallerstein @ajam February 15, 2014
A potential alliance of France, Germany and Russia haunts US strategists
US State Department Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland talks during a press conference
at the US Embassy in Kiev on February 7, 2014.Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images
Ukraine has been suffering a profound internal schism for some time now, one that is threatening to become one of those ugly civil wars that are occurring in more and more countries. The boundaries of present-day Ukraine include an east-west cleavage that is linguistic, religious, economic, and cultural, each side being close to 50 percent of the total.
The present government (said to be dominated by the eastern half) is accused in public demonstrations by the other side of corruption and authoritarian rule. No doubt this is true, at least in part. It is not however clear that a government dominated by the western half would be less corrupt and less authoritarian. In any case, the issue is posed internally in geopolitical terms: Should Ukraine be part of the European Union, or should it knit strong ties with Russia?
It is therefore perhaps unexpected that YouTube is now featuring a tape in which the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, is shown discussing U.S. political strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine with the U.S. Ambassador. In this tape, Ms. Nuland poses the issue as a geopolitical struggle between the United States and Europe (and more particularly Germany). She is caught in a diatribe, in which she says "Fuck the Europeans" - the Europeans, not the Russians.
Before we proceed with the analysis, let us take a moment to offer generic sympathy to all important people these days. In the last few years, there has been much discussion about the loss of privacy in communications. But this discussion has always been about little people subject to spying by governments, in particular by the U.S. National Security Agency. It seems however that this loss of privacy now extends to people like Ms. Nuland. There is much speculation about exactly who bugged her conversation and made it go viral on YouTube. The point is that poor Ms. Nuland is no longer safe in saying anything - or at least anything that she wouldn't want the whole world to know.
Let us take a look at who is Victoria Nuland. She is a surviving member of the neocon clique that surrounded George W. Bush, in whose government she served. Her husband, Robert Kagan, is one of the best-known ideologues of the neocon group. It is an interesting question what she is doing in such a key position in the Department of State of an Obama presidency. The least he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were supposed to do was to remove the neocons from such a role.
"Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power,
but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong."
Now, let us recall what exactly was the neocon line on Europe during the Bush days. The then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously talked of France and Germany as the "old Europe" in contrast to what he saw as the "new Europe" - that is, countries who shared Rumsfeld's views on the then imminent invasion of Iraq. The new Europe was for Rumsfeld Great Britain especially and east-central Europe, the countries formerly part of the Soviet bloc. Ms. Nuland seems to have the same perception of Europe.
Let me therefore propose that Ukraine is merely a convenient excuse or proxy for a larger geopolitical division that has nothing whatsoever to do with its internal schism. What haunts the Nulands of this world is not a putative "absorption" of Ukraine by Russia - an eventuality with which she could live. What haunts her and those who share her views is a geopolitical alliance of Germany/France and Russia. The nightmare of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis has receded a little bit since its acme in 2003, when U.S. efforts to have the U.N. Security Council endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 were defeated by France and Germany.
The nightmare has receded a bit but lurks there just beneath the surface, and for good reason. Such an alliance makes geopolitical sense for Germany/France and Russia. And in geopolitics, what makes sense is a constraint that insisting on ideological differences can affect very little. Geopolitical choices may be tweaked by the individuals in power, but the pressure of long-term national interests remains strong.
Why does a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis make sense? There are good reasons. One is the U.S. turn towards a Pacific-centrism replacing its long history of Atlantic-centrism. Russia's nightmare, and Germany's as well, is not a U.S.-China war but a U.S.-China alliance (one that would include Japan and Korea as well). Germany's only way of diminishing this threat to its own prosperity and power is an alliance with Russia. And her policy towards Ukraine shows precisely the priority she gives to resolving European issues by including rather than excluding Russia.
As for France, Hollande has been trying to woo the United States by acting as though France were part of the "new Europe." But Gaullism has been since 1945 the basic geopolitical stance of France. Such supposedly non-Gaullist presidents like Mitterrand and Sarkozy in fact pursued Gaullist policies. And Hollande will soon find he has little choice but to be a Gaullist. Gaullism is not "leftism" but rather the sense that it is the United States that threatens a continuing geopolitical role for France, and France has to defend its interests by an opening to Russia in order to counterbalance the power of the United States.
Who will win in this game? It remains to be seen. But Victoria Nuland seems a little like King Canute commanding the seas to recede. And the poor Ukrainians may find that they are forced to bind up their internal wounds whether they want to or not.
Immanuel Wallerstein is a senior research scholar in the department of sociology at Yale University and director emeritus of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University. He is also a resident researcher at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. His many books include “The Modern World-System and Historical Capitalism.” He lives in New Haven, Conn., and Paris.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/ukraine-nuland-europeyanukovychputin.html
====
The Cat, the Rooster, and the Young Mouse... and Vladimir Putin, Victoria Nuland, and Europe
András Simonyi
Managing Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR), Johns Hopkins University
Erik Brattberg
Visiting Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Posted: 02/10/2014 9:19 am EST Updated: 02/10/2014 9:59 am EST
After the terrible thing that happened last week, namely Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland using the F-word in reference to the EU's "effectiveness" in the Ukraine, we thought it might be good idea to remember a fable by Aesop: The Cat, the Rooster, and the Young Mouse.
We Europeans have all read it as children although it was not meant for children at all. Just to refresh your memory, it's about the scary looking Rooster who scares the hell out of the Little Mouse, when he screams and chases away the Cat, who is smooth looking and kind, but about to eat the little one. When the Little Mouse tells about his ordeal to his mother, she enlightens him:
----
"My son", said the Mother Mouse, "that gentle creature you saw was none other than the Cat. Under his kindly appearance, he bears a grudge against every one of us. The other was nothing but a bird who wouldn't harm you in the least. As for the Cat, he eats us. So be thankful, my child, that you escaped with your life, and, as long as you live, never judge people by their looks."
----
We think it is a fitting tale. Let's state the obvious: leaking the Assistant Secretary of State's private phone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine has a certain Eastern European leader written all over it. You know, the one at the moment enjoying being the host of the Winter Olympics. You have one guess. Look at it this way: it's another little episode in the Kremlin's thinly veiled and continued efforts to divide Europe and the United States.
The fallout from the Nuland YouTube video says little about Washington's attitude towards the EU and more about America's real strategic worries -- and of course the modus operandi of present day Russia. As we now know, the story was originally tweeted by a Russian government account. Even though Nuland quickly apologized, some Europeans fell for the obvious temptation of resorting to outrage. Angela Merkel's spokesperson called Nuland's words "absolutely unacceptable." And a member of the European Parliament, Austrian Jörg Leichtfried, not only called for Nuland's resignation but also a suspension of the negotiations of the transatlantic free trade agreement, TTIP.
Utter nonsense! Perhaps European diplomats in Washington failed to inform their leaders, that Nuland is Europe's friend. One should look at her track record. One should also know how happy European diplomats in Washington were to see her take the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. She knows Europe and she cares about the EU. In her first major speech in Washington after becoming appointed to her current position, Nuland spoke warmly of the EU and promised to work towards a new "transatlantic renaissance." She is the wrong person to fight on an issue where she was perhaps too harsh in her language, but certainly not off the mark as far as the substance is concerned.
Both Europeans and Americans have a shared interest in ensuring that the diplomatic crisis over the Nuland non-story does not escalate any further. In the wake of the NSA scandal, which is still reverberating strongly in some (though not all) European capitals and with the stakes in Ukraine getting higher by the day, what the West needs now is unity rather than division. Europe and America needs to stand firm and stand together in its opposition to the Yanukovich government's brutal crackdown of peaceful protestors and against Putin's foul play in the country.
So rather than wasting time decrying Nuland's comments, it would behoove European leaders to pay closer attention to what she has actually said -- namely, that the EU's response to the Ukraine crisis so far has been embarrassingly weak and slow, lacking a sense of urgency. Although some individual European leaders like Sweden's Carl Bildt and Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski have rightly called for a tougher and more pro-active EU approach to Ukraine, on the whole Europe has failed to deliver.
It is crucial that in addition to short-term fixes such as sanctions and economic aid, Brussels must also boldly extend to Ukraine the future possibility of membership in the EU as an incentive. This would naturally require revamping the Union's flawed neighborhood policy, which bizarrely lumps together countries as diverse as Ukraine and Egypt under a one-size-fits-all approach. If Ukraine shows anything, it is that this approach is nothing but an abject failure.
Europeans have repeatedly called for U.S. leadership. They should not be disappointed when such leadership is finally there. What Nuland said about the EU behind closed doors is not an issue. What should be an issue is for Europe to take a more strategic view and understand what really is at stake here.
Accept Nuland's apology and get back to the real issue: Europe and America must act together to resolve the Ukraine crisis. On that, clarity and even blunt talk is in place, as long as it helps keep that country on a trajectory towards democracy and indeed European integration.
Follow András Simonyi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CTR_SAIS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andras-simonyi/the-cat-the-rooster-and-t_b_4757247.html
See also:
Ukraine's Pivot to Moscow Leaves West Out in the Cold
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=94629962
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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